A Purley man ended up with a huge hole in the floor of his conservatory, and piles of rubble in his garden, when he tried to get a water leak fixed.

Vladimir “Val” Miljus, 71, of Purley Rise, was told by Thames Water there was a water leak somewhere on his property leaking at the rate of one litre every 11 seconds and told him he had 28 days to get it fixed.

Mr Miljus has a contract for which he pays a monthly fee with British Gas Homecare 300 covering plumbing work on his property so he gave the company a call to get the leak fixed.

He said: “They walked around for half a day trying to find the leak and couldn’t find anything at first.

“Then they decided it was underground, inside the conservatory.”

They dug a hole just outside the conservatory right by the wall and the manhole, but did not find the leak. He said: “Then they decided to dig inside the conservatory because this was where the smoke monitor they used to search for a leak showed it to be.”

On January 22 the workman dug an enormous hole in the conservatory floor – 4ft deep and still did not find the leak.

The hole is just outside the door which his elderly mother normally uses to go into the garden – and it is still there six weeks later.

Mr Miljus said: “They were not interested any more because they had used up the 11 hours of free labour. After that I have got to pay for it.”

Mr Miljus said the men offered to fill the hole in again, but left without finding his leak and without repairing it. They were also not prepared to reinstate the concrete floor or the wood flooring.

He said: “I think the service has just been awful.”.

Now Mr Miljus, who runs an engineering business in Central Reading, said he was not prepared to pay a British Gas any more money after its efforts so far.

He said: “I have contacted Thames Water, but they say they can’t do anything until the 28 days’ notice they gave me is up.”

Meanwhile Mr Miljus is left with a huge hole in his conservatory and a pile of debris in his garden.

British Gas spokesperson Laura Price said: “We have apologised to Mr Miljus for the delays he has experienced in resolving the problem.

“Our customer service team and the local engineering team are investigating all Mr Miljus’ concerns and will work hard to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.”